Benchmark tests of Active Disturbance Rejection Control on an industrial motion control platform

The improvement of Active Disturbance Rejection Control over the existing industry controller is benchmarked with the state of the art industrial automation equipment, using the common PLC, drive, and the mechanical transmissions of belt, gear, and direct coupling. All together 168 tests are run at various line speeds, different levels of pulse-like torque disturbance, and with various viscous friction. The results are tabulated for comparison, in terms of integrated absolute error and maximum error observed, and the RMS and peak torque required from the drive motor. In the worst case scenarios, across all variations of mechanical configuration, we observe the performance improvement from just under 20% to 290%, with comparable control efforts. Together with simplicity in the control algorithm itself, the ease of tuning and operation, such improvement establishes ADRC as a viable replacement of the existing industry controller in manufacturing.